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Health
& Beyond Newsletter Review
by Tom Billings
SF-LiFE has subscribed to the newsletter "Health &
Beyond" (H&B), which is put out by Chet Day. We also purchased a book that Chet
publishes.
Before saying what H&B is, it is appropriate to say what
it is not. H&B is not a simple repackaging/remarketing of what is often referred to as
the Natural Hygiene "party line", i.e. the writings of Shelton, Fry, or other
noted hygienists. Instead, H&B is true to the original spirit of the famous Herbert
Shelton quote, "Let us have the truth, though the heavens fall.". What H&B
does is to provide in-depth examination and current research on the assumptions and
beliefs of modern natural hygiene. The result is a newsletter that often directly
challenges the established beliefs of natural hygiene; the newsletter is also informative,
thought provoking, and sometimes controversial. In my opinion, H&B, along with M2M and
the e-mail list veg-raw, are the best things to happen to natural hygiene in years,
because the re-examination of old beliefs, in the light of new information, is precisely
what is necessary to keep a movement alive.
With that introduction, notes of interest on recent issues
(plus some back issues purchased by/donated to SF-LiFE), are as follows.
October 1996 and December 1996. Parts 1 & 2 of a 3-part
interview with Ward Nicholson, the founder of the M2M publication, on the topic of primate
diets and our prehistoric diet. Ward has done some superb, thoroughly documented research
in this area. He addresses questions regarding a number of assumptions made by
fruitarianism and natural hygiene. A paraphrased summary:
Q: Is the diet of primates very similar to the diet of human
fruitarians? A: No, most primates eat some raw animal flesh, with consumption of social
insects (termites, ants, bee brood) being common, also bird eggs. Animal foods comprise
5-10% of modern chimp diets - wild primates are neither fruitarians nor vegans. Also, some
primates, such as mountain gorillas, eat far more leaves than fruit - they are folivores,
not frugivores. Q: Was the diet of our prehistoric ancestors fruitarian? A: No, the
paleontological record is very clear on this. Our ancestors were omnivores who consumed
both plant and animal foods. Q: Are there reasons to believe that humans have evolved
genetically to adapt to a diet that includes some cooked food? A: Yes; for a lengthy,
technical explanation, see the December newsletter. On other topics, Ward also discusses
that chimps drink water, and practice a crude type of juicing. (Side remark: not mentioned
in H&B, but chimps have been observed using herbs for purely medicinal purposes!)
Here we see that H&B can be very controversial, as Ward's
research has debunked a number of assumptions that some raw fooders believe in strongly.
These issues are highly recommended - they will certainly stimulate your thinking!
March 1995. Part 2 of an interview with the well-known
hygienist, Dr. Ralph Cinque. If you think that only living fooders (like Brian Clement)
notice the high sugar levels of modern fruits **, listen to Dr. Cinque: "Nobody knows
for sure what ancient fruits consisted of, but there is reason to think they were lower in
sugar and higher in fiber than modern cultivated fruits...There is no place in the world
today where humans live exclusively on fruit, and there is no reason to think it was ever
so in a previous time." Dr. Cinque answers questions on a wide range of topics,
including fasting, juice diet, fat in the diet, etc.
** Side remark concerning modern fruit (not from H&B):
the high sugar levels of modern fruit generally are the result of one or more of the
following: years of varietal selection, artificial hybridization, vegetative (grafting,
non-seed) propagation, and possibly even genetic engineering. Exposing seed to (nuclear)
radiation is sometimes used to induce DNA mutations, and develop new varieties (a popular
approach back in the 50's and 60's). This suggests that modern fruit is not as natural as
some claim.
January 1996. Kombucha: a fermented tea made by growing a
fungus in a culture of sugar and (regular) black tea. Chet gives detailed information on
growing the fungus, alternative cultures that use honey and/or ginger to reduce the
sugar/tea required, and discusses the effect the kombucha tea has on his meditation
practice. Kombucha tea is a grow-at-home, low-cost B-vitamin source that is an attractive
alternative to high priced algae. Very interesting!
November 1995. Algae. Speaking of high priced algae, Chet has
also done an issue on Klamath Lake algae. SF-LiFE members will recognize the first section
of this issue - it is the "Comments on Blue-Green Algae (Supplements) and Other
Cyanobacteria" information sheet that I wrote and distributed first at SF-LiFE
meetings, then later released to the Internet, using my previous work e-mail account:
divine1@violet.Berkeley.EDU (I didn't choose the account name). The remainder of the issue
is reports from users, including Chet, who use or have tried it. Some people found it had
an effect, some did not. Chet provides cost and nutrient comparisons - algae versus dulse,
collards, and oranges; the comparison shows that algae is not a cost effective source of
nutrients.
Books. Chet publishes a number of books, one of which is in
the library. I have put discussion of it last, as the book reviews animal experimentation.
Readers offended by such discussion should skip the rest of this article. The book in
question is "Discovery of the Ultimate Diet: Testing Nutritional Theories on
Mice", Volume 2, by Dr. Stanley S. Bass. As you can tell from the title, Dr. Bass
tested a wide range of diets on mice, including many raw food diets. Some remarks on a few
of the diets are as follows; numbers refer to the diet number assigned by Dr. Bass in the
book.
3, 3a - Fruitarian. Fruit is the "highest" and best
diet? If you are a mouse, the answer is a resounding no. The mice died rapidly when on
this diet, and the dead mice were eaten by the survivors. Also, the surviving mice had
long- lasting, negative physical aftereffects from the fruit diet, even after they were
switched to different diets. 5 - 100% raw diet, including lots of sprouts (wheat, others).
The mice were alert, active, but also possibly oversexed: the males were chasing the
females, and many females were pregnant. Interesting! 19 - 100% raw diet, with legume/seed
sprouts but no grain sprouts. The mice did very well on this diet, but later when babies
were born, the babies were eaten. Dr. Bass says this suggests the presence of some
deficiencies. 30, 31 - Fasting the mice. This was fatal, unlike the results obtained by
other researchers. Dr. Bass attributes the deaths to his cages being kept in rooms that
were too cold. 43 - raw soaked grains, lentils, veggies. The mice thrived on this diet,
however, two mice managed to become obese on this diet! This is surprising as the diet is
similar to human raw food diets, on which gaining weight can be difficult. 45 - 100% raw
lentil/sunflower sprouts, plus greens and raw starch foods. The mice did very well on
this, a nearly ideal diet for mice; similar to the living foods diets that are promoted as
being anti-cancer. 48 - diet 45 plus cheese (diet 45 plus vitamins B-12, D). The babies
born under this diet were very healthy and were not eaten.
Based on this research, Dr. Bass developed what he considers
to be the ultimate diet, for which sample menus are given as appendices. This book is
interesting reading - highly recommended!
February 1995. Part 1 of the interview with noted hygienist,
Dr. Ralph Cinque. Dr. Cinque advocates eating some cooked food, and is critical of
fruitarianism; these are controversial positions in the Natural Hygiene movement. A few
excerpts follow, with explanatory information in brackets []: "There are no raw food
societies and there are no fruitarian societies. Period. That's significant to me. Don't
tell me that something is healthful until generations of people have done it
successfully." "What really is the case against cooking? It is essentially that
it is unnatural ...That argument is irrelevant because naturalism is not, and never has
been, an absolute value for human beings...modifying nature is what humans do in order to
survive." "I agree with [Dr.] Stanley [Bass] that a fruitarian diet does produce
deficiencies, and I have seen this in my own practice...I have seen growth failure in
children on fruitarian diets, and I have seen profound weakness and feebleness in babies
born of fruitarian mothers. I am no fan of Arnold Ehret [author of books on
fruitarianism]. He was the ultimate extremist..." Dr. Cinque also discusses enemas
and the "morbid" practice of testing your urine pH. [Side remark: I have seen
healthy, and sick/weak fruitarian children - from the same fruitarian mother! The sick
child had serious B-vitamin deficiencies, and was actually hospitalized for treatment.]
January 1994. Interview with Anthony and Deborah Boyar, who
operate "A Taste for Life", a raw food educational service, in Southern
California. Their interview touches on many interesting points. In response to a question
on cooked foods, Deborah makes a comment that has a much broader scope, as it reflects on
the tendency towards dogmatism in the raw foods movement: "I really am tired of the
whole dogmatic approach of trying to conform a living being into an idea or philosophy
rather than working with that living being to find out what's the right thing for it to
do. I have suffered myself and I've seen other people suffer from trying to be too rigid
and too idealistic..." Those of us who can see the danger of zealotry will surely
agree with Deborah here. What is right for one person might be wrong for another, in the
area of diet/health.
May 1995. Interview with Rev. Brother David Owen, the head of
the Essene Church of Christ. This issue provides an excellent summary of the Essene
principles, with some historical background also. The basic premise of the Church is that
Jesus was an Essene, a Jewish sect that followed a raw/living foods diet. Rev. Owen makes
the important observation that raw foods are a step in a process, not the end of a
process: "The progress of spiritual nutrition is an ongoing, progressive ascension
into ever less-dense, ever more-light, ever less-violent forms of vegetarian diet...
Angels eat no physical food; they live on subtle, etheric energies. And I tell you truly,
it is the destiny of human beings to evolve into angelic beings of light. Basic
vegetarianism is the first step. Raw foods are NOT the last step." [capitalization
mine, for emphasis].
March 1994 and April 1994. Interview with Dr.
Stanley Bass, who has practiced Natural Hygiene for nearly 50 years. Dr. Bass was a
fruitarian for several years, but is now quite critical of that diet. He is an expert on
fasting, and is the author of the book, "Discovery of the Ultimate Diet", which
was discussed in the previous SF-LiFE newsletter article. Below are some provocative
excerpts from the interview with Dr. Bass, with supplemental comments. "...speaking
of fasting, I have personally fasted more than any living human being, including Dick
Gregory. I've done maybe over 2000 days in my life... Something peculiar happens to
fasters. When they break a fast the appetite gets ravenous for about 7-10 days, depending
on the length of the fast. It's very, very difficult to control yourself then, and you
wind up overeating and bingeing". "...The problem with fasting is that it
leads to extremes. Like the pendulum of a clock, the further you swing one way, the
further you swing the other way...I wound up living a seesaw existence of fasting and
over-eating, fasting and over- eating. This is the danger of fasting." Dr. Bass then
discusses the psychology of fasting, and recommends: "...Rather than depending on the
fast to change your lifestyle, develop the habit of good lifestyle...then when you fast
you'll do the right thing afterwards..."
Side remark: I have mentioned this aspect of fasting - that it can promote a psychological
sense of deprivation, leading to over-eating. This is the first time I have ever seen the
issue openly discussed by a hygienist, as the usual response of fasting advocates is to
ignore this serious problem!
On to fruitarianism - Dr. Bass believes that fruits, fruit acids demineralize the body:
"Oh, people say fruits are alkaline...If you examine the end point of fruits in the
urine and in the bowels and stool, you get an alkaline ash, but what about the acid in the
fruit?...It [your body] gets the bases to neutralize the acids in the fruit from your own
body and it pulls the minerals out of your skeleton and tissues to neutralize it. So it is
dangerous to overeat of fruits, especially citrus...vegetables are more important than
fruit. Gorillas will eat 55-65 pounds of food, and that's about 97% vegetables and only 3%
fruit. [sour fruit, not sweet]... When I told T.C. Fry about the book I read about this
lady who lived with the gorillas and who was killed years later [Diane Fossey], I quoted
the part from the book and sent it to him where it said gorillas lived on 3% fruit and 97%
vegetation. He wrote back and told me the gorillas were perverted. And these were mountain
gorillas in Africa. So it just goes to show you can rationalize anything you want..."
Side remark, not from H&B: The remarks of Mr. Fry shows the difference in definition
of the word natural: an intellectually honest definition is that natural = what really
happens in nature, whereas many raw fooders use the definition natural = according to the
pre-conceptions and biases of certain "experts". The first definition can be
confirmed by direct observation, the second is simply someone's delusions.
Dr. Bass then discussed his experiments with feeding mice a fruitarian diet. He believes
that the high sugar levels of fruit can upset the body metabolism, and fruitarianism can
cause deficiencies as the diet is unbalanced. Dr. Bass makes the frank observation, one
that will upset some readers: "Unfortunately, a lot of these people who write books
on a fruitarian diet do not follow a 100% fruitarian diet. They are cheating and they
won't admit it. They don't realize they're being impelled by their own bodies to cheat, if
you want to call it cheating, because the body's rebelling against that lifestyle and
they're forced to cheat. So, rather than admit to what they see as their own personal
weakness, they think it's their own weakness that's causing them to fail, they become
hypocritical and start lying to themselves and other people."
Side remark, not from H&B: as a former long-time fruitarian, I must be honest and
agree with Dr. Bass. Many former fruitarians agree with Dr. Bass, many current fruitarians
[presumably] do not. Consider and decide for yourself who/what to believe.
I hope the above is an interesting sample of the thought-provoking information found in
H&B. I encourage you to read H&B, and to think about the assumptions that underlie
your raw food practice. In this world, information is power - use it to find what is
right, what is best, for you. H&B is an excellent source of information on diet and
health, and I give it my highest recommendation.
For More information on H&B visit http://www.chetday.com |
